Stop Working on Your Weaknesses

Performance reviews. If there is one song and dance that people in the corporate world know very well, its just that, the annual performance review. It’s a moment where both the manager and person being managed realize they haven’t spoken about personal development for a full year. The reviewer will hastily scribble a few points on paper based on own opinion following the trusted ‘start, stop and continue’ methodology. You begin with what you think the person should start doing in their role. What has been noticed as undesirable in their job and what they are doing well already? In some way it’s the infamous feedback sandwich, you might know it by a different name. You might get a score from 1 to 5, with one meaning your performance needs to be monitored and five being exceptional at your role and you should demand a pay rise. What you might not know is that most managers are expected to score most people a 3 and if high scores are being given, at least on a departmental level this needs to be compensated with a fair share of 2s. This is a weird side-effect of all scores being plotted against a bell curve to ‘normalize’ results.
So, you might end up in a situation where your manager ‘needs’ to find so-called ‘improvement’ points to either justify scoring you a 2 or to fill up the feedback sandwich. This, in turn, results in performance reviews solely being focused on negative points, i.e., your weaknesses. And that is just plain wrong. You don’t tell Ronaldo to stop playing football and focus on becoming a butcher. You don’t say to Bruce Springsteen to stop playing rock and concentrate on mumble rap. During an office renovation, you don’t spend your time driving waste to the local tip, no you hire a specialist such as A & M Metals & Waste to take care of it. Working on your weaknesses is like building a rocket but only focusing on the scaffolding that holds it up, without providing the fuel to make it reach the stars.
Authentic personal growth comes from uncovering your strengths. If you don’t know what those are its time for some self-reflection. As you would typically subject yourself to a root-cause analysis when you fail at something, do the same for your successes. Knowing what made the difference helps you find how you stand out from others. Ask yourself what it was that resulted in success. What went into achieving that success? Breaking down your result in actions will compartmentalize what critical factors were. Who was behind that? Identifying who contributed what will uncover what kind of crucial role you played in achieving the overall result. How much time was required to achieve that result? Doing something well is one, knowing how quickly you could replicate that result helps in setting others, but also your expectation. What was the net effect of that successful endeavor? This enables you to quantify what your strength will deliver for a business or yourself.
Once you know what your strengths are, think SWOT, at least the Strengths and Opportunities part of this model. Your advantages and the right opportunity will be that what makes you stand out.
In the next performance review, if you notice that the conversation is getting slanted towards weaknesses, ask about your strengths and how the company is making most of those. You might find this to be an entirely different discussion in general.